Once again, it’s time to hear from our sister in Jerusalem about what she is witnessing there as a believer in Yeshua. Put your prayer shawls on and pray for Israel and Sister J. Now here she is …

Greetings DEAR sisters and brothers, in The Name of Yeshua who was faithful, is faithful and will be faithful to glorify His Name and to bring His perfect purposes to pass. Halleluiah! May you be blessed and may He be blessed and glorified

With emotions still bruised, I am clueless, but I pray that He will bring to remembrance the observations that seem to have been quickened to me this week. I have received wonderful emails from some of you that have not yet been answered, and I’m sorry. I have been in somewhat of a quiet space. I know that some of you reading this lived amidst the bombings of WW2, or have experienced other awful wars on your own soil.

And I know that others fought in wars on foreign soil. So you know the pressures of wars far bigger then this 50-day war. I feel somewhat embarrassed to emerge at this end speaking about our stress, which also was not much when compared to what our brothers and sisters experienced in the south on the Gaza border. Then there are those who were on the receiving end of our defense as well. All of these suffered far more then I did, but I am not equipped to speak of their experiences, only to share with you my own, and so I will.

On the day that the fighting stopped, there was so much confusion. Some of that has been sorted out as I took a step back and we had opportunity to listen to one another. I am now convinced that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the generals in charge of decision-making did an extraordinary job with the options that they were faced with. Much of the warfare itself took place in booby-trapped houses. It seems to me that the leadership also had to walk through a booby-trapped maze. Although Hamas came out rejoicing and loudly proclaiming, “victory,” it has become more and more evident that it certainly wasn’t a victory for them.

You might recall the prayer that I was praying toward the end: “Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves.” (Psalm 66:7) It is interesting that Psalm 68:6 says “…but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.” (again, Alla is the god of deserts and of dry places.) It took me a while to see that they had NOT achieved a victory in spite of the Hamas rallies. During which, by the way, two Gaza participants were killed by celebratory gunfire.

Nonetheless, being Israelis we are now involved in much self criticism as well as the reality of paying the huge bill for the war. Neither a raise in taxes nor cuts to the budgets of the public ministries are being well received. But these are just the facts of life.

Last night was the first night that I slept all the way through without hearing phantom air-raid sirens in my head. It felt good. The trains and buses are full of weary soldiers returning home for a break and others returning to their bases after a break, looking clean and neat again. One of our patients, Yehuda, came by and I asked him how he was doing. He looked at me and said, “Okay, I guess,” and crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out.

I laughed and said, “Brrrrrargh! Me too!”

Immediately the picture came to mind that some of you from America might remember of the comic character Peanuts. In it, there was a little bird that would often get the brunt of stress and his little feathers would be all ruffled and his tongue hanging out. PERFECT! It is sort of how most of us are feeling after these 50 days as we emerge and we are very unsure just WHAT we are emerging to.

How I praise The Lord for His great faithfulness. This war has stirred a hunger in many people. Perhaps you recall my prayer request for Rachel who visited my apartment several weeks ago and wanted to know about The Lord and how He set me free from depression and brought me victory in weight loss. She called me and said, “Guess what I found in the scriptures? I have to come over and show you. It is about the war! The answer is here!”

We plan for her to come by this week or next. Last night a at our fellowship meeting a dear sister told me that she was deeply burdened for the people of the South while she was riding to work on the bus. She had her Bible in her lap and was silently praying when suddenly the woman in front of her jumped and turned around and stared at her. “Are you PRAYING?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, I was,” she answered. “How did you know?”

The woman smiled and said, “The Holy Spirit just began pouring all over me from behind me. I knew you had to be praying!”

It turned out that the woman was a believer who had come from Russia. What an encouragement to the TWO of them and to me. So often we can’t SAY anything. If we DO share, it is as if we are sharing strange tales. But He tells us to, “Be Light and salt in the midst” and “to let HIS Light shine among men.” And what an encouragement to see that He, in His great faithfulness, is indeed walking in the midst. He WILL make His Presence AND His Name known to all.

The first day of the cease fire, as I said, there was much confusion; Did we stop too soon? Did they win or loose? Will there be quiet in the south? Did we reward terrorism? Are we better off then we were 51 days ago? But by day two, more flags were out again and people were standing a bit straighter.

On the day of the cease fire, the Syrian war spilled over into our North. Al qaeda groups fighting with the rebels took over the Christian village of Quneitra with the strategic Quneitra crossing between Syria and Israel. During the fighting, several missiles were shot into Israel damaging cars while a stray bullet injured an Israeli officer. Poor war torn Syria … so much fighting…so much grief. Barbarism – beheading and torture running rampant – Islam slays the infidels and the earth reels with blood.

God is in the midst and we are certainly learning to FIX our eyes on The Lord. Look away unto Yeshua – Jesus – behold Him as Stephen did. And so I ask Him for “…patience and longsuffering with joy…” for who knows how long it will be until we too are called upon to stand? Slowly, I’m learning the reality that it is ONLY in looking away unto Him that I will be able to stand in the face of such things. Oh, intellectually I say, “Of course I will”…but the closer I live to these actual events, the more I see my own natural inability to stand.

God bless and keep you. May we be given His discernment, be filled with His Holy Spirit and the Love of Yeshua which passes knowledge…and may we choose His way, ALWAYS, no matter what the cost. All glory to Him Who paid such a price. He must consider us very precious to have taken us each all the way to the cross. May we treat one another the same way – as precious.